Is one recurring thought keeping you fat?

written by Simone on Friday, December 4th, 2009

Confession: I love the Biggest Looser. I know it totally manipulates our emotions and the product placement/commercials within the show are atrocious. But as I watch their journey’s; the hard work and the personal vulnerabilities and realizations they share with the world, it confirms for me that with access to, an understanding of, and ability to change our inner world, our outer world can and will change in a profound and lasting ways.  But without an understanding of what is going on inside lasting change is difficult if not impossible.

For many of you, you are probably saying ‘duh,’ but yet the majority of us still try so hard working with the outside stuff without even glancing inside. I am not talking about extensive therapy; I mean being familiar with our own minds, knowing what recurring thoughts and emotions we have and when and why they are triggered? What kind of thoughts do you have throughout the day, mostly positive or mostly negative? Shouldn’t we at least know? 

I know it sounds simplistic or reductionist to say “one thought,” maybe it should be ‘a variation of thoughts on one recurring theme’ is keeping us fat, isolated, stuck, etc.  Amanda, last of the contestants this season, says, on the treadmill (they are always on that treadmill), “I only know how to be the fat girl I don’t know how to do anything else but quit, I have always quit.” That was a weepy breakthrough moment because with the awareness the fact that that thought  has been running her life, or stopping her from loosing weight, she can now change it, if she chooses too.  Without that personal awareness that thought would always get in her way. 

If we look at what thoughts we act on, over and over again, we realize they have shaped our lives and without looking and acknowledging these thoughts we can’t make lasting change (not to say that awareness is enough but it is the first step).  There is more than one way to go inside of course; meditation is one way.  There’s alot of information about what meditation is and does but at the most basic level when we practice meditation we become very familiar with our own minds, with the thoughts and emotions and patterns that come up over and over again. 

Serious issues need outside help and more than meditation. Meditation is just the beginning or the maintenance piece for change.  But if we are at least familiar with how our own minds work; are able to watch our minds objectively to see the thoughts, to see what is driving us or even sometimes torturing us, it will help us to create a conscious life by our own design rather than living out old unwanted thought patterns.  In fact, I think it is more than helpful I think it is essential – but you know my bias here.